


shark teeth and sunny smile

by crimsoncheers



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Beaches, Blood and Injury, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:42:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26030611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsoncheers/pseuds/crimsoncheers
Summary: There's afuckingmerman on his bathtub. The reality of it finally sinking deep inside Nazuna's brain. He remembers the legends and folktales of the town, and though he wasn't totally a firm believer, Kuro's existence alone proves just one thing.The legends and folktales and all of the stories from the past are all true.Or, human Nazuna rescues merman Kuro, and their fated meeting leads down towards an unlikely path not just for them, but for the small town of Yumenosaki.
Relationships: Kiryuu Kurou/Nito Nazuna
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	shark teeth and sunny smile

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this for the delicious idea of merman kuro dicking down nazuna, ended up making it a bit more lore heavy than expected 😔
> 
> hi again! your favorite kuronazu porn writer here once again returns with another idea (booooo--). i have plans for this to be a bit longer than my demon fic and it's definitely more lore heavy than it. i hope you guys are cool with that thing! this fic btw gets a bit dark, not just steamy! i wont tag anything yet but just putting it out there.
> 
> there are other ships in this fic, but i wont tag them just yet. if youre curious to know, it's izuleo and chiakana!
> 
> ok i wrote much more than expected sorry

The day starts like any other day.

Waking up to the sound of the alarm clock's loud ringing, groggy eyes forcing itself to flutter open and letting his body rise from the comforts of his bed. The short, blonde-haired man quickly skips to the bathroom to freshen up, wash his face and all to let the chill of cold water assuredly wake himself up, before heading to the kitchen to prepare a nice cup of coffee and some breakfast. He cooks himself a quick meal of rice, eggs, and sardines, while brewing up coffee with the coffee machine. The tasks are fairly easy, having become used to his usual morning routine by now. 

When he finishes, known by the mixed delicious scent of steamed rice, cooked sunny-side up eggs, and sardines and the bright green light from the coffee machine, he takes the cup of coffee and a plate with his meal along with chopsticks. He swings open his front door with his leg, the chill breeze blowing by, the morning sun that is just rising greeting him. In front of where he stands, is a small grassy area that shifts to soft, white sand, where if you look up, a view of a quiet beach is found. The sky and sea aren’t so blue as it is just early in the morning, but the tranquility of living alone on the beach was always welcoming. He turns around, spotting his usual small table and chair standing idly at the porch, and he settles down the mug and plate he is carrying on the table. He sits down on the chair, and picks up a book from a basket of books and magazines found below the table. 

Nazuna's life has always been like this for the past two years, since moving to the quiet countryside away from the hustle and bustle of the city. To be fair, his former house life wasn't so kind to him, with parents who wouldn't dare spare a glance his way and peers who only talked to him when needed. It was suffocating living there, feeling aimless and lost.

Moving here was surely the best decision of his life. 

He’s got a successful tourist business that has attracted people from far and wide, partly thanks to his dear friend and the mayor’s son, Sakuma Rei, for promoting it massively as a means to get the town some attention. People from all around find themselves allured by not just the pretty posters and sugary words at the flyers, but the rich culture and traditions that runs deep within the rural town of Yumenosaki.

After eating breakfast, Nazuna changes quickly to his work attire and leaves his house for his office, following down a stone path from his back door that leads to a small establishment right smack at the beach’s entrance noted by a sign. It is a bit of a walk to get there, but he made sure to let his workplace be located in a convenient spot where both he can get to easily while also being the first notable place for tourists to note since the beach is always the first place tourists go when visiting the town.

The familiar sign of "Ra*bits' Touring Agency" can be seen as soon as Nazuna reaches the end of the stone path. He swings the door open, and is greeted by the familiar cheerful voices of his three other co-workers.

"Good morning, Nii-chan!" Tomoya, Hajime, and Mitsuru greet Nazuna, and he gives each of them a smile in return.

"Morning, guys!" Nazuna greets them back happily, "Let's get to work, shall we?"

Today's shift is as follows. Nazuna and Hajime are left in charge of the morning tourist group, while Mitsuru and Tomoya handle the main office work. During the afternoon, their roles interchange. Snack breaks are for 30 minutes at 10AM and 3PM, and lunch break is always for an hour from 12:30PM to 1:30PM. Touring ends at 6:30PM, and the group settle around in the office for another hour before their work day officially ends. Tomorrow, they interchange shifts but the schedule remains. No tourist work is done on weekends and holidays.

Nazuna enjoys work, that is something he can never deny to himself. He loves narrating the town’s humble beginnings, guiding people who are here to learn more about Yumenosaki to key locations that are important to the town. Watching their faces sparkle in awe as he speaks in detail about the legends and tales related to the statues and the lone temple of the town. It was satisfying, seeing his hard work from researching about the place despite not being a local, transfer to the minds of these people who find newfound appreciation about the town.

Aside from work, Nazuna also loves his young co-workers. Though their beginnings were a little rough, they had proven themselves over time to be capable of the job. Hajime’s strength in calming rowdy tourists and dealing with nosy ones, Mitsuru was good in hyping up crowds and keeping up the excited buzz throughout the tour, and Tomoya was great in explaining the history and adding in details about the places they brought people to. The four of them have grown extremely close throughout their time together, forging a strong familial bond with them, something that he never had the pleasure of fully experiencing in recent years.

At the end of every tour, Nazuna takes them to the town’s beach where they can swim and play around and spend the rest of their allotted time. The beach is seen as a sacred place to the locals, so not a lot of people swim there for recreation or linger around for too long. Though it’s not exactly prevented to have fun on the beach either, most of the people were gratefully respectful of the unspoken rule.

When his touring shift finishes and Nazuna’s next shift is left spent in the confines of the office, he uses the time aside from actual work to just bond with whichever townsfolk decided to visit the office today. Today, a very happy Leo Tsukinaga, the self-proclaimed best friend of Nazuna, came in to visit Nazuna and chat with him while he multitasks on filling up paperwork. He goes on and on about the freelance work he's taken up recently, while mentioning about his boyfriend who is currently working overseas as a model.

Day becomes night and Nazuna walks back to his little cottage near the beach. He spends the rest of the night either reading up on more books, browsing through the web and social media, or taking a quiet stroll around the beach.

The feeling of the night breeze and sand on his feet and the scent of salt overtaking his nostrils was always welcoming. It was a beautiful reminder of Nazuna’s now happy life in the quiet town of Yumenosaki. 

Nazuna loves the town, loves his co-workers, and he wishes that days like these would go on forever.

.

Before humans walked the earth, all living creatures originated from the sea.

That is the assured law of nature.

Some living creatures move to the land, and ever since, have lived there.

That is another assured law of nature.

This is a story from a thousand years ago, where a human once fell in love with a sea creature and no law of nature had separated their love.

That love had birthed our goddess, Shio. The goddess was a magnificent creature, half human and half sea creature with unimaginable powers capable anything. Her very existence brought forth new possibilities, and soon, there was an abundance of people like her, half human and half sea creature, though none ever shared the same power as her.

Once upon a time, humans bonded with these half and half beings, the two seeing each other as equals despite one living in land and the other in sea. But over time, humans became greedy of the potential we had, became power hungry and hated our kind even when we had done nothing but were kind to them. They hunted us, killed our people and thought that if they ate our flesh, would become just like us.

Our tails only became a poison to their bodies.

And the goddess _became_ angry.

She punished the humans, every single one of them, by ultimately erasing their memory of us, of the true nature of what lies beyond the shore.

Shio’s powers exhausted her, and now she sleeps at the bottom of the ocean, deep in the caverns and trenches where nothing but the angry and bloodlusted fishes lay.

But what she didn’t know was that her power came at a price, and _that is--_

The town of Yumenosaki believes in the sea goddess, Shio.

Shio is believed to bear the appearance like the fabled merfolk in fairytales, someone with the upper body of a human but the lower body of a fish.

Only sketches and written records of accounts related to her can be found, which is the ultimate source of our belief in the goddess.

It is believed that there are many others who are like Shio as well, those who are half human and half sea creatures and are loyal to her, but none can ever compare to the power of the goddess herself.

However, legend tells that she is now sleeping under the surface of the sea, tired and worn from her rule over the sea. But accounts write that after her long slumber, she would rise back to the surface one day and fall in love with a human. She would bestow upon said human the secrets of the sea and gift to the human unimaginable blessings.

We hold a tradition every year in anticipation of her return, singing songs and dancing and praising her name. 

Though for the past hundreds of years, no sightings of her presence have ever been found, we still cling to that hope that she will return. We offer her many gifts, and sometimes, she would actually respond. We offer her thirty pieces of mackerel inside the temple where the monks worship her to ask for a bountiful fishing season, and our fisherman catch netfuls of fish that almost break the nets. Silly, I know, but it’s things like it that make me believe in the goddess for a bit.

If she were to truly return, then I hope she knows that the little town of Yumenosaki would be the first to welcome her with open arms.

.

It is another tranquil night and Nazuna decides to use that time to walk around the beach once again.

The sand is soft under his feet, and the moonlight shines it’s beautiful blue that illuminates above the quiet waves of the sea. Evening strolls on the beach was such a lovely passtime, a good place for him to silently contemplate mundane things like what he would have for breakfast tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow is the start of the weekend anyway, so Nazuna has all the time in the world tonight to get lost in his own mind.

Nazuna starts to spin around, his leg raised and feet light as he dances in circles. The sand grains fly with his movements, and so lost in the moment, this serenity that he has all to himself, he starts to sing a sad song that he’s listened once on the radio. His voice is light and high, ringing beautifully that if one were to spot him right now, they would think about how he oddly fits in place to the scenery before them.

He gets so lost in his song, that he doesn’t realize that his leg bumps into something rather big. Nazuna shrieks as he loses balance, landing face first to the sand and his body landing on top of the thing he tripped on. He immediately coughs out the sand nearly entering his mouth, choking and cursing out words as he crawls his body out of the bothersome big thing he tripped on and stands up to wipe away the sand catching on his shirt.

“Ngah! What the he--?!” As Nazuna turns around, ready to see whatever it was he tripped on, he suddenly pauses, his eyes widening at the realization of what he’s seeing.

At his feet, is a human, or...wait, _is he?_ He is close to the appearance of a merperson? Or merman? The upper body appears to be one of a human, but the bottom half of his body shifts drastically to one resembling a shark’s tail. The tail is gray with a white bottom, with fins and the tail with slight scratches. On his upper body, his skin is the color of flesh, and on top of his head is red, spiked hair with strands of black that shift to said color at the back of hair. Ears are not human-shaped though, but rather big and pointed and gray with some piercings on both sides. His eyes are shut closed, and his mouth agape open for Nazuna to see sharp teeth, panting out short breaths and painful whines. He looks to be in immense pain. There are scars all over his muscular chest and arms, some old and some fresh, but it was concerning nonetheless.

“H...Help…take me...away from here...from the ocean...” He suddenly speaks, and Nazuna immediately jumps at the voice.

Two different thoughts flash through Nazuna’s mind the moment his eyes were set on him.

One was, _what the hell so merpeople are fucking real. What the fuck. What the fuck!_ The second was that he knew right away that something was up. Wouldn’t a merman normally want to go back to the ocean? There must be a reason why he’s asking such an odd request. Well, Nazuna could leave him alone, but he could be in danger when the next day comes and the merman would still be here. Tourists would be shocked by his presence, locals would be alarmed by it, and there would be chaos.

This should be none of his concern, and yet, and yet, Nazuna finds himself wanting to help him.

A _stupid_ part of him that wants to be nice despite all the risks.

His house is just a few meters away, and Nazuna is worried if he could handle carrying the merman back with him to the comforts of his home. But it’s worth a shot anyway, he needed to bring him home, and fast before anyone catches him.

Nazuna bends down behind him and taps on the creature’s shoulders, but only receives a pained wail as a response. Sweat trickles down his forehead seeing his despaired face, and though a part of him is yelling that being involved with this creature is a bad idea, the more kind side of him wants to help him before it’s too late.

“I’m gonna help you, okay?” Nazuna tells him, and the creature only groans. Nazuna isn’t sure if he heard him, but he hopes he did, so he could cooperate in his attempt to bring him home.

Small arms dig deep into the sand and rise up to curve under the armpits of the merman. With his arms hooking tightly onto him, Nazuna lifts him up carefully from the sand and the creature immediately groans, his body leaning on Nazuna's chest and soaking his shirt, but remains calm throughout. Slowly but surely, Nazuna starts to drag him back to his home. It was a daunting task, as the creature was so heavy that Nazuna had to pause every twenty or thirty steps, before walking again. The process repeats, until Nazuna manages to make it to his porch, where he practically kicks back his door to open it, which he gratefully left just a bit ajar before leaving for his walk to the beach. 

The town’s crime rate is really low, so it’s fine.

He drags him inside and the door to his bathroom is already open by the time he enters. Nazuna enters the bathroom, for his tub and once in front of it, lifts the merman up with all his strength to place him inside the tub. He lands on the ceramic surface with a quiet groan, and his body slumping to the wall with his breath slowly evening out yet still sounding so, so tired. His eyes are open now, and Nazuna notes that there are sharp, piercing green eyes watching his every move. 

Nazuna isn’t exactly sure on what to do next, so he decides to just fill up his tub with water. He hopes the creature wouldn’t mind, but he probably needs it if he was going to...stay here. His hand reaches for the knob that lets the water flow out from the pipe. He can feel the merman’s eyes on him as he does so, and even still as Nazuna decides to sit down next to him outside the tub, waiting for the water to fill up to the near brim.

They stay silent for a few moments, before Nazuna scratches the back of his head and sheepishly smiles at him.

“Uh, is it okay that I dragged you here…uh...?” He asks, unsure of what to call him, but it seems the merman catches on easily.

“...Kuro.” He simply says, though there’s a hint of tiredness in his voice, “...Call me Kuro. And yeah, here‘s fine.”

“O-Okway, Kwuro!” Nazuna jumps, his lisp suddenly slipping because he’s honestly nervous because there’s a merman on his tub, “I’ll...leave you alone now, okay?”

Kuro just nods, sinking down his body to the water. Nazuna realizes that the water is almost filling up the brim, and he quickly turns the valve off to prevent any more of it from coming. Thankfully, the water doesn’t overflow and he can relax. Nazuna gives Kuro a shy smile, telling him to just call for him if he needs anything, and leaves the merman on his own lonesome.

When he finally closes the door behind him, Nazuna immediately sinks to the floor with his hands covering his face. He almost wants to scream, but he stops himself, scared Kuro might hear him and wonder why he is doing such a thing.

There's a _fucking_ merman on his bathtub. The reality of it finally sinking deep inside Nazuna's brain. He remembers the legends and folktales of the town, and though he wasn't totally a firm believer, Kuro's existence alone proves just one thing.

The legends and folktales and all of the stories from the past are all true.

_ Or most, at  least. _

Merfolk exist, and there are possibly more out there. The goddess though? Is she still asleep after several years? Who knows.

Nazuna's mind weighs heavy now as he tries to figure out what his next plan is. Telling the locals is out of the question, they would surely be shocked, and though they share a common belief in the existence of merfolk, who knows what they would do to Kuro. He would need to understand everyone's intentions first before telling them anything (or nothing), that's for sure.

This means though, that he has to keep Kuro around with him a little longer.

Well, it's not like he's totally against the idea. Kuro seems quiet and well-behaved at least. He's nice and quite handsome if he thought long and hard about it.

...But that's not the point! Nazuna will keep Kuro safe for now, until Kuro wants to go back to the sea.

Their little exchange where he mentioned to Nazuna to take him away from the sea rubs him off, but he surely has a reason why. And why did he look so hurt? There are so many questions running around, making a mess out of his head that it starts to hurt. 

Nazuna tells himself that he can just ask Kuro tomorrow, but for now, he needs to sleep. His body is aching and his eyes are feeling drowsy, he might as well.

He stands up from the floor and heads for his bedroom. Nazuna takes off all of his garments save for his underwear and drops them to the floor, the clothes wet thanks to carrying Kuro around, before crawling into the thick and soft caverns of his comforter. His head is throbbing with worrying thoughts, but he shuts them off to force himself to slumber.

That night, Nazuna dreams of a lone shark swimming in the murky darkness of the ocean, lost and alone and calling out for a name that he can't remember.

**Author's Note:**

> im gonna write more krnz porn now i miss writing it already
> 
> my twitter: @tjmkbndr


End file.
